Improving Climate and Achievement in a Troubled Urban High School Through the Talent Development Model

Creating a Comprehensive School Reform Model: The Talent Development High School With Career Academies

“…In Baltimore, we found that the organizational reforms produced significantly higher rates of student attendance, which led to more students passing their courses and earning promotion to the next grades, and produced fewer dropouts and higher rates of high school graduation (McPartland, Balfanz, Jordan, & Legters, 1998). But we also observed that too many students continued to fail core academic courses, especially in the ninth grade.…”

“…Student average daily attendance increased by 10 percentage points schoolwide and by 15 percentage points in the 9th grade at Patterson, while the district average at the eight other nonselective high schools declined by three points over the same 2-year period; no other single school came close to Patterson's gains. Because a much higher percentage of students were earning promotion to the next grade at Patterson, there were nearly twice as many entering the 11th grade after 2 years of the TDHS reforms (McPartland, Balfanz, Jordan, & Legters, 1998).…”

What Reform Left Behind

“…Research on careerfocused high school reform that seeks to be more relevant for students' lives (e.g., Grubb, 1995;Hershey, Silverberg, Haimson, Hudis, & Jackson, 1999;Stern, Dayton, & Raby, 1998;Stern, Raby, & Dayton, 1992) has been thoroughly reviewed by Castellano, Stringfield, and Stone (2003), Hughes, Thomas, andMechur (2001), andUrquiola et al (1997). The high school reform literature has also emphasized the importance of small learning communities (SLCs) to ensure a more personalized environment for students, and the logistical issues involved in breaking large high schools into SLCs (Cotton, 2001;Legters, 2000;Legters, Balfanz, Jordan, & McPartland, 2002;McAndrews & Anderson, 2002;McPartland, Balfanz, Jordan, & Legters, 1998;Stern et al, 1998). A growing body of literature suggests that the creation of smaller schools (not just SLCs within large schools) may result in better outcomes for students and not necessarily cost more than the large schools touted for their efficiency (Gregory, 2000;Lee & Smith, 1995Nathan & Febey, 2001;Stiefel, Berne, Iatarola, & Fruchter, 2000;Wasley, Holland, King, Mosak, & Powell, 2000).…”

“…In the mid 1990s, Belfast High School began implementation of the TDHS reform model (Legters et al, 2002;McPartland et al, 1998). The school principal led a reform planning team through the process of breaking the school into smaller academies (a ninth-grade academy and four upper-level career academies), with advice and support from the TDHS developer team.…”

Promising Solutions for the Least Productive American High Schools

“…In some large buildings without adequate adult hall-monitoring systems, significant numbers of student hall-walkers can set the tone of a chaotic school not under adult control. In these cases, teachers will often close their classroom doors and paper over their windows to isolate themselves from the confusion and disruptions in the building (McPartland, Balfanz, Jordan, & Legters, 1998). Teachers and students may feel unsafe in their building, and some students will bring weapons and various illegal drugs to school (Kaufman et al, 1998).…”